Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- May 14, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Energy
Regulatory Commission is working on a solution to fully implement retail
competition and open access (RCOA), which was blocked by a temporary
restraining order (TRO) issued by the Supreme Court.
ERC has come up with studies on how
to move forward with the RCOA issue, ERC chairperson Agnes Devanadera said.
“The action of the ERC may be
construed as something that would breach the line of the TRO so really, we have
to be very careful but, of course, we have studied it and we are now ready for
commission deliberations,” she said.
In February 2017, the High Court
stopped the Department of Energy (DOE) and ERC from implementing the mandatory
migration of large power consumers to RCOA.
Under the RCOA scheme, large
electricity consumers in Luzon and Visayas with an average monthly peak demand
of at least one megawatt (MW) have the option to seek their own power supplier.
The mandatory migration to RCOA of
end-users with at least one-MW usage was scheduled on Feb. 26, 2017, while
customers with at least 750 kilowatts (kw) in demand was supposed to migrate
June 26.
The TRO was sought by the Philippine
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, San Beda College Alabang Inc., Ateneo de
Manila University and Riverbanks Development Corp. They argued the new
rules supposedly limit the accredited suppliers for big power consumers.
Currently, there are 30 licensed
retail electricity suppliers (RES) in the market, of which seven have already
expired licenses.
No comments:
Post a Comment